How to Make Rose Liquor

If you've been babying your roses through the summer season, now's the time to reap the rewards. Well, you've probably displayed your budding babies in a few flower arrangements, but now you can bottle your season's best into a rose liquor that's delicious and easy to make.

How to Make Rose Liquor


This is a two part process, so plan on starting now and finishing up around the middle of September. It takes a while, but the rose petals do all the work.

Ingredients

A quart sized jar with a tight fitting lid
A decorative display bottle
6 cups rose petals (Avoid roses that have been sprayed with pesticides.)
2 cups granulate sugar
1 bottle brandy (The better the brandy the better the liquor will be.)
1 cup of water

Directions for Rose Liquor

Wash and rinse three to five cups of rose petals and place them in the quart jar. They should fill the container but not be so closely packed that there's no movement when you jiggle the jar back and forth.

Add enough brandy to cover the petals completely. This is important or the mixture could get moldy.

Cap the jar and place it in a warm spot for a month to six weeks, shaking it every few days.

At the six week mark, combine the sugar with a cup of water and heat on low, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Add a cup  of fresh rose petals to the sugar water (use a cup and a half if the petals are small) and continue stirring until you can smell a strong rose aroma. Sorry. I'll take a thermometer reading next time.

Strain the syrup through a length of cheese cloth, cool and add it to the brandy mixture.

Let the batch sit on your countertop for another two weeks -- again, shaking every few days.

Strain the brandy through cheesecloth and into the decorative bottle. It should smell strongly of roses and taste wonderfully summery and sweet.

Notes on Making Rose Liquor

You can use any scented rose variety.

The jars and lids should be very clean.

The longer you let the mixture infuse, the more flavorful it will become.

If you have plenty of roses, this makes a nice holiday or hostess gift. Just dry a rose bud and tie it to the neck of the bottle with a pretty ribbon.


Drink rose liquor as a decadent dessert, use it as an ingredient in baking (it's delicious in brownies or chocolate cake), or add a little to your next pork roast.